“Let’s ask him.”

“No!” Veronica stood up. “Don’t you dare.”

Nellie laughed. “Why not?”

“Because it’s none of our business. You better not.”

Nellie shook her head, her face still full of humor. “All right, all right. You’re no fun anymore. The old Roni would’ve already been flirting with him.”

Veronica rolled her eyes going down for one more stretch. “Yeah, well the old me didn’t weigh a hundred and sixty-seven freakin’ pounds!” She groaned disgusted in herself. How could she let herself go like this? She’d gained more than the forty pounds she thought she had.

Nellie was right about one thing. She’d almost forgotten what a flirt she could be. But she was wrong about the other. There was no way she’d ever think about going out with someone so much younger than her. It was hard enough to find a mature guy her age, she most certainly was not taking her chances on the younger ones.

Noah dropped a mat in front of each of them and then one in front of himself. “All right, ladies. Have a seat.”

After stretching for only about ten minutes, Veronica was already sweating. Sweating! And they hadn’t even started the work out. This was humiliating. Once stretched out to Noah’s satisfaction, he had them hop on the treadmill. What he called a warm up had Veronica drenched within minutes.

As they did their warm up, before the real workout started—good lord this was going to kill her—he talked to them about his plan for them. Since Veronica needed to lose so much more than Nellie, their workouts would be a little different. Which, to Veronica, translated into, he’d be working her out until she was in tears. Oh yeah, she’d be coming back for more of this crap. If she made it out of here alive tonight, Nellie would be lucky to get her to take that walk in the park she talked about earlier, much less get her to come back here.

Once the real workout started, Veronica did feel like throwing up. She regretted wearing a sweatshirt now. She was roasting but taking it off and revealing the t-shirt that probably now clung to her sweat drenched body was out of the question. Just like she could make out every chiseled muscle on Noah’s body he’d be sure to make out every roll on hers. No thanks. She’d faint from heat exhaustion before that happened.

Thankfully, Noah was paged because he had a call in the office. He apologized but told them to keep going. “You guys have ten more minutes on that anyway. I’ll be back before then. Keep up the pace.” He lifted an eyebrow at Veronica and she almost growled in response.

No sooner was he out of sight that both she and Nellie slowed down to a crawl. The water bottles Nellie had packed were long gone and their dry mouths were aching for some now. Soon, Nellie got off her treadmill and reached for the gym bag, pulling out her inhaler. After two hits, she was back on the machine.

“I can’t,” Veronica started saying but found she could barely talk, “believe…I let you… talk me… into this.”

Nellie was breathing just as hard. “But aren’t you excited?” She stopped to catch her breath. “You’re gonna lose so much weight.”

Two loud bangs brought their attention up toward the office door, where Noah stood with the phone to his ear, his hand on the wall he’d apparently slammed it against and his expression seemed menacing but at the same time sexy as hell. It surprised her that at a moment like this she would even be thinking like that.

He pointed his finger up forcefully, as in, “pick up the pace.” Both Nellie and Veronica groaned and changed the speed on their treadmills back up, but Veronica didn’t go back to the speed he’d left them on—she couldn’t. She already felt ready to drop.

Half an hour later and one of the most excruciating work outs she’d ever endured done, Veronica and Nellie sat on the floor with their backs against the wall as Noah handed them both a suggested diet. Nellie took a couple more hits of her inhaler, shaking it after each time. “Now it’s not mandatory for you to stick to this particular diet, but I highly suggest that you do if you want to get the most of your training and lose weight as quickly as possible.”

Veronica watched what Nellie called his suckable lips as he spoke and had to admit they were. Probably the most suckable she’d ever encountered. Too bad she’d never see them again because if he thought she was coming back for more of this torture tomorrow he was out of his mind. Luckily, after today’s work out, she was pretty sure Nellie wouldn’t be anxious to come back either.

Tomorrow—gads! Just the thought. She’d probably be too sore to even walk. Once Noah was done with the rundown of the week’s schedule, they were finally out of there. They started very slowly to the door as Noah began picking up their mats from the ground. “Veronica.”

Veronica turned to him her body already aching. “You did good. I’m proud of you.”

His smile alone was enough to warm her insides and she immediately felt ashamed. First, for dismissing the next workout so quickly, but then for the scandalous thoughts that followed about her and her young trainer.

“Thanks,” she said, glancing at Nellie.

As soon as they were out the door, she knew Nellie would have something to say and she did with a smirk. “He didn’t tell me I did good, or that I made him proud.”

Veronica rolled her eyes. “That’s probably because he expected you to do well. Obviously he wasn’t expecting much from me.”